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Brief Synopsis

A Texas gal storms her way through life, brawling and boozing until her luck runs out, forcing her to learn the errors of her ways.

After an Indian attack on a wagon train, Mort, one of the dying white men, blames his leader Silas Jennings for bringing down the wrath of God in response to Silas' adultery. When Mort calls Silas' lover a harlot, Silas puts his foot on Mort's throat and pushes him to the ground until he is dead. An old man, quoting the Bible, warns Silas that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children even unto the third and fourth generation. Eighteen years later, in Rollins, Texas, Silas' daughter Ruth falls in love with Ronasa, an Indian, while her husband, Pete Springer, spends much time away on business. After Ronasa, obeying his father, leaves to marry the daughter of another chief, Ruth has a baby, Nasa. She grows up to be a rambunctious woman, who is troubled by her changing, extreme moods. After seeing Nasa whip her gentle, half-breed friend Moonglow, Pete, now one of the richest men in Texas, sends her to a private academy for girls in Chicago. Nasa quickly acquires a reputation in Chicago for her wild behavior. As her coming-out party approaches, Pete gives a story to the newspaper that Nasa's engagement to a man of his choice, Charlie Moffett, will be announced at the party. Nasa explodes with anger and invites man-about-town Larry Crosby. At the party, Larry's mistress, Sunny De Lane, arrives with another man and gets in a hair-pulling fight with Nasa. Larry then proposes to Nasa, who accepts, thinking that it will be a joke on her father. They marry the next afternoon, and Nasa tries to reconcile with her father, but he tells her that he never wants to see her again. Larry comes in drunk late that night, and after they spend a few hours in bed, he dresses to rejoin a poker game. When Nasa, upset, questions the reason he married her, he confesses he did it to get even with Sunny. Nasa goes on a spree, gambling and buying clothes, furs and jewelry with Larry's credit, until Larry's lawyer tells her that he is dangerously ill in New Orleans and advises her to visit him. During the visit, Larry tries to rape her. She hits him over the head with a stool, knocking him out, and when she learns from a doctor that "his mind is affected," she worries for the child with which she is pregnant. One month later, Nasa gives birth to a "seven-month" baby, but she is relieved when the doctor tells her that the baby is healthy. Nasa moves to a cheap boardinghouse. When she needs money for a prescription for the baby, she asks a neighbor's girl to look after the child and picks up a man on the street. She purchases the prescription, but returns to find that her baby has died of smoke suffocation in a fire that started when a lecherous drunk followed the babysitter and dropped a lighted match. Moonglow, who has come with news that Nasa's grandfather has died and left her $100,000, tries to console her, but she vows to get even with life. Nasa divorces Larry and one month later arrives in New York, where she advertises for a male escort. Attracted to her, Jay Randall, the jaded son of a millionaire mine owner, applies, not telling her his real identity. When a brawl erupts in a Greenwich Village restaurant, after a man identifies Jay as a millionaire's son, Nasa enjoys the excitement and confesses that she knew his identity the second day they met. Jay tells his father that he wants to marry Nasa, but his father warns him of her almost uncontrollable temper and challenges Jay to bring Nasa to a dinner party. To Jay's and Nasa's surprise, Jay's father has invited Larry and Sunny. The dinner turns into a brawl after Larry speaks disrespectfully about Nasa's dead child. Jay rebukes Nasa and calls her "savage." Alone and drunk, Nasa gets violently angry at the men who have made her life miserable. When she learns that her mother is ill, she returns to Texas. Ruth dies after calling Ronasa's name. After Moonglow tells Nasa that Ronasa was the son of an Indian chief who killed himself because he was in love with a beautiful white woman, Nasa realizes that the woman was her mother. She tells Moonglow that she is glad to be a half-breed and takes his hand.